Does broken sword 1 allow a full installation?

[Serious Callers Only]

Not in scummvm, but the original games. The sword.inf file seems like it should hold the paths to the needed files, but when i edit them to look relative it still ask for the cd. I know one of those files is duplicated but different (speech\speech.clu) but as the lines are duplicated too in the sword.inf i wonder if it shouldn't be possible to put them in different subdirs.

Any one had success on this?

[Serious Callers Only]

I was planning to have a mega installation (with the data files and the executables for dos, windows, and a sym link for the speech files with the name scummvm expects). The dos and windows merging seems to work with the cd and the symlink to the scummvm speech files works (symlink speech1.clu and speech2.clu in speech dir to different dirs).

Just the sword.inf paths don't work.

[KuroShiro]

I don't really see why you would want/need to do this, as avoiding it is part of the point of ScummVM.

I can say that the majority of games from that era were not really designed with something like a full install in mind. If you can get it to work congrats, but it seems like wasted labor. It's likely that the game wanting the CD is actual copy protection.

[Serious Callers Only]

but i do own the cds my friend with it's actual parisian background in orange and mauve (?).

Anyway i thought of a way to run the cd version, but only on dosbox.

The mount command accepts mounting a dir as a cd. So mount current dir in batch file copy files and its almost done.

The only possible niggle is if the duplicated entries on the sword.inf file do not refer to cd1 and cd2 (would be boring to have to reinstall when it couldn't find cd2 files).

So if someone has a cd2 save (dos version) that they could attach here to let me test the new config file i would appreciate it.

[Serious Callers Only]

humm i am forgetting something important... ingame cd changes. It's likely it wont work even if it the rest works ok.


damn. i dislike being dependent on a program to run a game - be it dosbox or scummvm, but these old games with their aversion to full installs make me do it.

[Serious Callers Only]

Actually it worked.

I was missing the cd1.id file.

There is probably a cd2.id file too.

Instructions:
1) install max size
2) copy every missing music and speech files to your dir, modify the speech dir of each cd to speech1 & speech2. Copy the cd1.id and cd2.id files too.

i made a symlink in the speech dir to the speech1\speech.clu and speech2\speech.clu dirs so scummvm still works (couldn't it read the config file instead - maybe it does and it is i that am confused).

3) alter your circle.bat or baphomet.bat by inserting
mount d . -t cdrom

at the top
Also you need to edit the sword.inf file.
Contents of sword.inf
smackshi\

smackshi\

D:\speech1\

D:\speech2\

D:\music\

D:\music\

clusters\

clusters\

saves\

English

notear


Run that circle.bat batch. It should complain at first but when you retry it runs.
I have no idea why it would complain.

I haven't tested until the cd change.
I'd like a save just before it.

You should also bind dos32a to the sword exe and setsound (it wont even run without or dos4g it even though it's installed by the cd).

[bobdevis]

DosBox has a feature to allow you to mount multiple disks on the same drive-letter and switch between them with a key command.
I forgot the details, but I'm sure you can find it on their forum or documentation.

I don't see the point of all this though. Now that smacker video works in ScummVM, there is nothing to gain from running BS on Dosbox.

[eriktorbjorn]

I don't see the point of all this though. Now that smacker video works in ScummVM, there is nothing to gain from running BS on Dosbox.

There could be some minor things. I believe the original had a "low detail" setting that ScummVM doesn't have, though that hardly seems like a big loss to me.

[Serious Callers Only]

Alas.

Dosbox has a nasty bug with broken sword.
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 6cb8eef0b4

[Serious Callers Only]

I have a version of the game that has all the music as wav uncompressed, not as a music.clu, so i don't need a seperate music dir. However there are some musics with repeated filenames. Anyone know if they are really the same?

[KuroShiro]

Honestly, if you don't like relying on 3rd party programs to run games, then install Windows 9x on a partition. There is no other way to do it reliably on newer OSes, hence ScummVM and DosBox's existence.

For most games there is really no appreciable difference between the original and ScummVM, except the global menu, and sound fidelity if you're extremely picky.

[eriktorbjorn]

I have a version of the game that has all the music as wav uncompressed, not as a music.clu, so i don't need a seperate music dir.

That's normal for Broken Sword 1. In fact, the names of the music files are hard-coded into the game engine.

However there are some musics with repeated filenames. Anyone know if they are really the same?

On mine, the following files appear on both discs: 1m34.wav, 2m26.wav, 2m29.wav, 2m6.wav, 3m12.wav, 3m30.wav, 4m10.wav, 4m9.wav, 5m1.wav, 8m4.wav, 8m7.wav.

Of these, 2m29.wav is the only one that isn't exactly identical on both discs. But even though they're not identical, it's the same piece of music. It just sounds like two different recordings of it (the flute plays slightly differently at 00:23). The one on disc one is about twice the size of the one on disc two becauses it uses a higher sample rate, so it should sound a bit better. I couldn't tell the difference on my measly computer speakers though. Maybe if I used headphones...

[bobdevis]

You can't install Win9x on new hardware. There is like a mountain of unresolvable issues if you try to do that.

What the OP could do is try Win9x or DOS inside VMWare or VirtualBox. I am unsure if you will be able to get the sound working though.

[Red_Breast]

I believe a number of people on VOGONS actually set up a dedicated PC for their old games either by still having original hardware or building it from scratch and buying second hand components. Depends how serious you are I guess.
With software like ScummVM and DOSBox these days it's generally only the Win9x games where you need to come up with a solution.

What you said here:-
"damn. i dislike being dependent on a program to run a game - be it dosbox or scummvm, but these old games with their aversion to full installs make me do it."
Any chance of explaining why? You never know - maybe we can reassure you.

[bobdevis]

I believe a number of people on VOGONS actually set up a dedicated PC for their old games [...]

Yeah. With a 3Dfx card for GLide support. Oh, the good old days.....